Faith seeking wisdom

My wife, three university-aged children and I spent last Christmas at
a Christian center for genocide survivors in Kigali, Rwanda. We spoke
at length with survivors of the 1994 mass slaughter in which about a
million Tutsi were killed in 100 days. We heard stories of whole
families slaughtered by neighbors and fellow Christians, of women raped
and mutilated and now HIV positive, of horrendous torture and
humiliation. We worshiped with these survivors (an extraordinary mixture
of tears, as testimonies to the genocide were given, and joy, as
Christmas was celebrated with music and a survivors' dance group). We
learned how the center helps with counseling, treatment for HIV/AIDS,
education, housing, economic assistance and above all with providing a
kind of family for those with no family. We visited memorials and sites
and talked to Rwandans and among ourselves.

As I have tried to
absorb the experience, the genocide has seemed both more understandable
than before and also much more mysterious and disturbing—and certainly
not yet over, as its effects, its implications and the attempts to come
to terms with it continue. By comparison, the question of how I have
changed my mind seems rather unimportant.